The World Class City, the homeless and soup kitchens in Kuala Lumpur

Abstract

Since the early 1990s, Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia, has been entangled in the modality of World Class City building. Following key insights by critical scholars like Henri Lefebvre and Doreen Massey, in this article the author shows how spatio-temporal processes have historically produced variegated and contested relational spaces in the city centre. In particular, through the case-study of the recent spatial cleansing of the homeless and soup kitchens in downtown Kuala Lumpur, the author argues for not only critically appreciating the durability and mutability of hegemonic relational spaces but also their potential for irruption because of the ethical dynamic of ‘thrown-togetherness’ that these spaces churn up.